What am I doing wrong?

[Warhammer]

Tho I am a newbie to the board, I am an experienced Civ/CivII player that has had very little difficulty in beating either of the previous games on either Diety or Emperor level, yet when I come over to Civ 3, I have been having tremendous difficulty.

I have been playing as the French in all my games. I get out to a decent sized Civ, and go the scientific route. Sort of like my Civ 2 strategy, expand, solidify borders, build up the science, then unleash my technically superior troops on the AI. The only problem is here I do not have the superior troops...

I have never been eliminated, but I have never been the dominant civ either, I have always been a middle of the pack guy in Civ 3.

So my question to all of you is what are some of your successful strategies on Monarch (or higher)?

[dr.charm]

Don't unleash

Seriously, war is a much bigger deal in Civ3 than in Civ2. If you want to get involved in a war, make them come to you, weaken them, then attack. Or better yet, build a coalition and stomp on the guy.

My war strategy is to wait, let him crash against my defensive lines, and then hit with a spearhead of knights/cavalry/tanks (whatever is current) backed up by pikemen/riflemen/infantry. Don't try to do too much at once, have a goal in mind before you attack (make it a limited goal: like grab a resource, destroy/take a critical city etc.) It will be virtually impossible to simply walk over a civ anywhere near your technological level.

Cheers,

Dr. Charm